Bitcoin as Fitness (longish post).....
One of the topics I've heard wrestled with on multiple podcasts is the principle of trustlessness as relates to bitcoin. Other variations on this theme are the "trust but verify" and bitcoin as a "trust-minimizing money" memes. Why this recurring theme of Trust? I would argue that trustlessness is of central importance BECAUSE of humans' limitless capacity for deception. Now, in the natural world, deception is certainly not the exclusive domain of homo sapiens - animals are capable of camouflage, mimicry, and misdirection. But humans have certainly perfected this unholy art. For the most part, animals tend to be trusting because in their simpler social hierarchies, complex deception is uncommon. Because false altruism tends not to happen amongst animals, gestures such as sharing of food or social grooming are unambiguous acts of social bonding (as opposed to self-serving Machiavelian manipulations). Further, in matters of fitness and/or survival, most animal behavior (whether in higher vertebrates or "simpler" organisms) tends to rely on unfalsifiable signals.
Unfalsifiable signals serve as incontrovertible evidence of an individual's fitness, their status as friend or foe, and thus their suitability as a mate and their rightful place in the pecking order. Examples of unfalsifiable signals are the bright coloration of male peacocks, birds of paradise, or mandrills. The bright coloration both demonstrates the nutritional/physiological health of the individual and serves as proof that the individual is fit enough to survive a hostile environment while flouting any attempt at effective camouflage. In modern parlance, this is a "flex." This conspicuous display is unfalsifiable. There is no faking it. Other examples are the thick mane, imposing size, large rack of antlers, and combat prowess of dominant male lions, brown bears, red deer, and elephant seals, respectively. These markers of fitness are unfalsifiable, and in a sense demonstrate inarguably a sort of proof of work.
Humans, by virtue of our capacity for complex abstract thought, are in a constant quest to attempt falsify any and all markers of fitness. Thus we invent cosmetic surgery, botox, and all manner of prosthetic enhancers (wigs, false eyelashes, spanks, penis pumps) in order to game the physiological indicators selected for by millions of years of evolution to communicate to our peers our level of fitness. We have devised creative feats of financial engineering to allow any consumer to flaunt any luxury good that society has deemed a status symbol (e.g. the working class person purchasing an extravagant vehicle on a usurious loan with a minimal down payment). We have innovated buy now/pay later schemes to finance any and all fiscal indiscretions. The cumulative effect of all this is to warp and distort any signal in the social marketplace that projects fitness (of an individual/mate; of a corporation; of a nation state). This is Fiat: the falsifier of signal.
Enter #Bitcoin.
By virtue of its proof-of-work-based tethering to physical reality, Bitcoin reemphasizes the unfalsifiable signal. It reifies the primacy of uncompromising Truth. This is the basis of Bitcoin's nature as a trust-minimizing protocol. Yet another thing Bitcoin fixes. In keeping with the theme of Fitness, muscle glycogen and our bodies' fat stores are storehouses of caloric energy that equip us to survive periods of deprivation. A derivative of this, further extending our fitness, external food storage also equips us against hardship and uncertainty. Yet another derivative beyond this, a true and sound money protects against uncertainty extending well beyond what glycogen, fat, and stored food can accomplish. This is unfalsifiable. Trustless. This is Bitcoin. Bitcoin is Fitness.
#thinkstr
